A cause of death was not immediately known.
Moses was born in New York City in January 1935 and grew up in Harlem, according to his biography on Stanford University’s King Encyclopedia of civil rights figures. He earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Harvard University in 1957.
In the late 1950’s he began working on the civil rights movement, joining the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and traveling with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Moses was the architect of the 1964 voter registration campaign, the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, among several other civil rights projects.
He was a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi when three civil rights workers were murdered by a group of men that included a Mississippi deputy sheriff. He also helped lead an ill-fated attempt to sit African-American delegates from Mississippi at the segregated 1964 Democratic National Convention.
Moses grew so disenchanted by his experiences that he moved to Tanzania, where he taught mathematics. He returned to the United States in 1976 and in 1982, he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow.
He used his fellowship to create the Algebra Project, a national program that encourages African-American students to attend college by first teaching them mathematical literacy.
“Bob Moses was a giant, a strategist at the core of the civil rights movement,” Johnson said in the statement released Sunday. “Through his life’s work, he bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice, making our world a better place. He fought for our right to vote, our most sacred right.”
“He knew that justice, freedom and democracy were not a state, but an ongoing struggle. So may his light continue to guide us as we face another wave of Jim Crow Laws. His example is more important now than ever,” the statement continued.
CNN reached out to the family for more information on his death.
That’s the message the Arizona Department of Public Safety has for drivers after a truck driver in Phoenix failed to secure a load and a metal pole fell off, crashing into a sport utility vehicle behind the truck.
On Thursday, a pickup truck hauling a trailer hit a bump on Arizona State Route 51, causing a roughly 4-foot-long metal pole to come off the trailer. The pole ended up piercing the center of the windshield of a Nissan SUV directly behind it, according to a Facebook post.
The pole ended up lodged between the Nissan’s center back seat and the SUV’s roof.
The driver of the truck did not stop and has not been located, the department said. Mandy Poff, the woman driving the Nissan, was not injured, but she told CNN affiliate KPNX she’s terrified to get back in her car.
“I can picture it coming by my face and that feeling — that’s hard to get out of your head,” Poff said.
When the pole struck her windshield, just inches from her face, glass “showered down” on her.
“I remember the paramedics telling me, ‘I can’t believe you’re alive. I can’t believe you made it through this,'” Poff said.
The public safety department warned drivers need to secure their load no matter how short the drive or how heavy the items.
“Road debris poses a serious hazard to everyone on the road, from other motorists to the law enforcement and road maintenance crews that go out to retrieve it,” according to the department’s post. “No matter how short the drive or how heavy the items, please take the time to secure your load before every trip!”
It is too early to tell how the outlook is shaping up for 2022. The challenge will be significant for Democrats who barely have control of the House and Senate. The next round of gerrymandering in states controlled by the GOP will give the party a helping hand with regards to the House.
In the coming months, the Biden administration will need to make decisions about how many resources and how much energy they should devote to the midterm campaigns. Historically, some presidents have invested less than others about the fate of their party in Congress. In fact, this was a criticism leveled against President Obama.
For President Biden, there are a number of political issues at stake in what happens in November 2022.
Agenda: One of the greatest powers of the presidency is the ability to sway what issues the nation’s elected officials are focusing on. When the president decides to focus some of his time on any particular issue, much of Washington often follows. We have seen this, for instance, with infrastructure. Even if the other party doesn’t agree with what the presidency is doing, they find themselves debating the president’s agenda rather than their own.
Republicans are eager to turn national attention toward a set of issues they believe will be to the advantage their party: border control, crime, the classroom culture wars, and inflation. Although Republicans have already achieved considerable success keeping these topics front and center — helped in large part by Fox News and other conservative media outlets that offer a mechanism to counteract any Democratic bully pulpit — a shift in control of either chamber would make it considerably more difficult for President Biden to keep attention on the issues that concern his party, such as climate change and the social safety net.
A base for 2024: Successful midterm elections can become a platform to prepare for a successful run against the president in his reelection bid. In 1966, for instance, Republicans gained seats in the midterm elections even though Democrats retained control of the House and Senate (which, other than when the Republicans controlled the Senate from 1981 to 1987, the Democrats held from 1955 to 1995). Teaming up with southern Democrats, in 1967 and 1968, Republicans put pressure on President Lyndon B. Johnson to cut Great Society spending and to deal with the inflationary effects of the war in Vietnam, all of which helped Richard Nixon win office in 1968.
To be sure, strong midterm performances don’t always have this effect. Though Democrats were devastated when the GOP took control of Congress in 1994, President Clinton was able to decisively defeat Senator Robert Dole in 1996.
In 2023, Republican control of the House or Senate would likely help the GOP. Republican senators hoping to run for the White House in 2024 would have new opportunities for national attention. A Republican House or Senate could shift attention toward questions that would benefit possible candidates who are currently serving as governors. And given the close alignment of Congressional Republicans to former President Trump, this would clearly boost his chances for reelection.
Investigations: Controlling Congress allows the party in power to intensify any investigations into the White House. Republicans are clamoring to open up as many questions as possible into the Biden administration. Indeed, allegations of corruption have been central to their attacks on this very likeable president since he first announced his bid for office. The president’s family, particularly his son Hunter, has always been in the eye of the storm. Should Republicans gain congressional power, the next two years will inevitably see a large number of committees seek any dirt possible on the president.
Pandemic Recovery: At this point one of the greatest risks that the president, and nation, would face would come on the public health front. Many Republicans have lined themselves up against key public health initiatives. Other than a few exceptions, the party has launched ongoing attacks against vaccination mandates and passports — even as former President Trump touts the vaccine’s development as one of his greatest accomplishments. Over the past year the party has proven to be a key source of resistance to core recommendations from the science community, such as wearing masks and social distancing.
It is not a surprise that the greatest surges of the Delta variant are taking place in red states. If the House and Senate are under Republican control, barring the pandemic miraculously being eradicated, a shift in power will pose an immense challenge to Biden going into the second half of his term. “If you have hundreds of thousands of Americans getting sick, that’s problematic for any president,” one of Obama’s pollsters commented. Ultimately, Biden will be measured in 2024 by his ability to move the nation beyond the health crisis we have lived through. If Americans feel that conditions are bad, the Democrats will have trouble keeping power.
Voting: The right to vote is being threatened in many states across the country. The US Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to strike down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act has allowed red states to move forward with all sorts of restrictions and requirements on casting a ballot.
The GOP has been committed to this campaign for years. Other than the Department of Justice, Congress is the last bastion that can stop this. Currently, Republicans are preventing Democrats from passing voting rights legislation because of the filibuster. With majority control of the House or Senate, such legislation would not even be considered as more states continue to change their laws.
To be sure, there would be other challenges as well. But Democrats should be aware of the immense stakes that the party faces. The administration can’t afford to make the mistake that previous presidents have made, such as not putting enough resources into the congressional races until it’s too late. The midterms will have a determining impact on how the Biden presidency unfolds.
With Covid-19 cases here spiking, more than 11,000 competitors from 206 countries are navigating the games after a year-long postponement, without fans in the stands and under stress-inducing pandemic precautions. However, the first lady spent her two and a half days in Tokyo on a mission to put the concerns over coronavirus in second place and Team USA in first.
Before the actual events started, Biden oohed and aahed over the American athletes. She told a group of a dozen or so during a virtual meet-up — she from the US Chargé d’Affaires residence at the United States Embassy compound, they from their individual rooms at Olympic Village, or their training centers, miles away — how proud she was of them.
“For most of you, the journey to Tokyo began long, long ago. It likely started at a young age. The first time you picked up a ball or jumped in the water. The first ride that made you feel really free. Or when the backflip you thought was impossible suddenly wasn’t,” Biden said. “You’ve given up so much to be here. You’ve sacrificed time with friends and pushed yourself harder than you thought you could.”
At the opening ceremonies, it was Biden — one of just 950 VIPs invited to attend in person in an arena meant to hold tens of thousands — who jumped up when it was Team USA’s turn to enter the venue. Earlier that day, Biden had told Sue Bird, the American basketball star and flag-bearer, “You are one amazing woman!”
“I’m really excited for this game aren’t you? As you can see I’m all decked out,” Biden gushed the next day at a USA-Mexico softball game viewing for embassy staff and their families back at the gilded reception room at the residence, where she was the consummate Olympics watch-party hostess, lamenting she couldn’t serve snacks and drinks. Due to Covid-19 protocols, that wasn’t possible. “I feel so terrible that we can’t offer you food — and a glass of wine — but they said ‘no.'”
At the games Friday night, she gave a pep talk to the American 3-on-3 women’s basketball team before their match against France (USA won). In the swimming venue, she cheered back when a group of USA swimmers in the stands began a “Doc-tor Bi-den!” chant. She stayed the duration of the USA women’s soccer game against New Zealand, from which she had been scheduled to depart sooner, insisting on catching the entirety of the 6-1 win. She later tweeted a photo of herself in the virtually empty stadium made to hold 48,000 spectators, on her feet clapping, with the caption, “Hope you could hear me up here!”
For her first Olympics as first lady, she was the fan who wore almost too much USA garb, decked out in a spiffy Ralph Lauren official Team USA T-shirt, navy blazer, red, white and blue belt and matching sneakers, and white jeans with the letters U-S-A emblazoned in navy on the front of one pant leg. “As I walked down the hallway, I felt like a new kid — a kid on the first day of school. You know how you have all your new clothes, but you didn’t wash them? So these jeans are so stiff. So, note to self!”
Like many moms of Olympians past, she overdid it all just slightly — the cheering, the clapping, the swag, the euphoric pride, the tortured facial expressions over a missed goal or tight pass, a lap of swimming that came down to the wire. There weren’t arena-wide chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” but seated essentially by herself, there was Biden with a lone whoop and a cheer. She was doing it louder and harder than she might have if she weren’t the only physically present support system, a parent for all 613 of America’s Olympians. The day before her live appearance, speaking to the athletes on Zoom — which is how many of them have been communicating with their own parents or grandparents from Covid isolation at the Olympic Village — Biden, who almost always wears her gold “Nana” necklace, was the surrogate.
“Becoming an Olympian is a rare accomplishment in a normal time. But you did it during a global pandemic,” she said, going on to underscore the national unity of the Olympics at a time when America, at home, is often divided. “In these moments we are more than our cities or states or backgrounds. We are more than our jobs or our political parties.”
Pandemic looms
In the lead-up to the opening ceremonies, the world was keeping an eye on the number of Covid-19 cases reported in Tokyo, specifically among those associated with the Olympic Games. Each day it ticked upward. As of Sunday, the number of cases linked to the Olympics has risen to 137, according to the organizers. Tokyo itself is under a state of emergency for the duration of the games, with the normally packed streets sparse, restaurants and shops closed, and delegations — including the United States’ — sequestered in their hotels. Japan still has a relatively low vaccination rate.
Well over three quarters of the US athletes that are in Japan for the Olympics have received Covid-19 vaccines, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee said Friday. Yet at 83%, there’s still concern about rising infections.
One day before Biden was slated to depart Washington for Japan, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked if the first lady still intended to go, considering the rise in cases and the rapid spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. “There’s been no change, she’s still planning on attending the games,” Psaki said. “The President, the first lady felt it was important to have the delegation lead at the highest level. So she is looking forward to continuing her travels.”
Biden has not commented publicly on whether she hesitated about attending the games, but a White House official told CNN she has been full-steam ahead since the opportunity presented itself. “Above all else, she wants these athletes to know that their country is behind them,” the official said.
More broadly, some health experts have questioned the rationale of holding the games.
“Zero Covid is not a reasonable goal. The question is: just how many cases will be too many?,” Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, tweeted last week. “I want to believe these @Olympics will be safe, but I also know that we are dealing with a virus that has surprised us at every turn.”
Even the CEO of the Tokyo 2020 Games said Tuesday he wasn’t 100% certain he wouldn’t have to pull the plug on the entire Olympics if the virus suddenly became a potential superspreader event.
But if Biden had been concerned about attending the games, she didn’t let on. “I’m excited to go! Aren’t you?” she said to this reporter while boarding her government jet for Japan from Alaska, where she had stopped to do a vaccination event at a local health care center in Anchorage.
But also, diplomacy
Biden also used her trip abroad to flex some of her diplomatic muscle. The last time she attended an Olympics, it was 2010 in Vancouver, Canada, and she was second lady. This time, as first lady, she represented the United States alongside several world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, who was a guest with Biden at a VIP reception at the Imperial Palace Thursday evening, invited by Japanese Emperor Naruhito. The night before, Biden was hosted for dinner at Akasaka Palace by Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his wife, Mariko Suga.
Back in the US on Friday, President Joe Biden told a Virginia crowd at a campaign rally for gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe that Jill Biden was specifically requested by the Japanese Prime Minister. “Jill wanted to be here tonight, but if you turn on the Olympics and watch Team USA, you’ll see Jill Biden standing there,” the President. “The Japanese Prime Minister, who I invited as the first person to come to the White House as a head of state, he made it real clear — he didn’t want me, he wanted her to go. He is a man of incredible judgment.”
The morning after her dinner, Biden returned to the palace to attend a workshop with Mariko Suga about the ancient ritual of incense. Later that day, in her remarks at the embassy watch party with Foreign Service Officers and their families, Biden said the lessons of Covid have had an impact on our global shared experience. “We’ve seen that the things that really connect us, like the love of competition or music or stories and the desire to protect the people we love, really transcend language and difference. And diplomacy, at its best, is a recognition of that connection,” she said.
Biden also noted embassy staff had endured what she deemed a challenging prior few years, their jobs hamstrung by more tenuous international relations. “We’re going to show the world what the United States can achieve when we are guided by heart and hope and diplomacy,” she said, nodding to what she feels is a shift in how America is perceived abroad. “Or as my husband has said, when we lead by the power of our example, not the example of our power.”
Before the watch party, she attended a small ceremony at the Chief of Mission Residence, dedicating a room in the massive home in honor of Irene Hirano Inouye and the late Sen. Daniel K. Inouye. The late Hawaii senator — whose wife was a champion of US and Japan relations — was, according to Biden, one of the President’s closest friends and mentor. “If at the end of life, you have five friends that you can count … you’re really a lucky person,” she said. “I think that Danny Inouye, I know that Danny Inouye, would be one of them,” she said of her husband’s relationship with the late senator.
Biden’s varied diplomatic events in Japan were a good barometer for what is ahead for her global platform, indicating she intends to be an effective emissary for the President.
But despite her time at the palaces, in the presence of powerful world leaders, Biden remained focused on her primary mission: cheerleader mom for America’s Olympians. When Friday’s Zoom talk with the athletes ended, and the cameras were turned off, lights and equipment rolled away, Biden looked over at the three-person press pool present to document her trip and said talking to the athletes was surprisingly “emotional.”
“It meant a lot to me. And to Joe. It should be exciting to watch the events,” she said.
Then she turned to the handful of embassy staff who helped prep the virtual conversation with Team USA, thanking them. “Am I allowed to shake hands?” she asked, knowing the answer would be “no,” instead offering her elbow for a bump. “Just pretend these are hugs.”
Clark Atlanta University, which is located just west of the city’s downtown, said in a news release Friday that it had received a substantial amount of support from the federal government under the CARES Act Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, which had allowed it to help students.
“We understand these past two academic years have been emotionally and financially difficult on students and their families due to the Covid-19 pandemic. That is why we will continue to do all we can to support their efforts to complete their CAU education,” President George T. French Jr. said in the release.
“Their academic and professional future is important to me and the entire Clark Atlanta University family. We care about students and want to lighten their individual and family’s financial load so they can continue their journey in pursuing and attaining their educational and professional goals.”
Aside from tuition relief, Clark Atlanta University said federal help had allowed it to provide emergency financial aid, refund a pro-rated amount of housing and meal charges for spring 2020, purchase 4,000 Dell laptops for every financially enrolled student, and buy hotspots to give students with limited or no internet access in their homes. The university had nearly 4,000 students as of 2019, according to its website.
In a letter to Clark students announcing the move Thursday, French praised them for navigating their way through the devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Not since the influenza pandemic of 1918 has our nation and the world experienced such repercussions of sickness, debilitation, and death,” he wrote. “I am personally thankful for your resilience, perseverance, and ‘find a way or make one’ attitudes.”
Clark Atlanta University isn’t the first school to help students financially because of the pandemic.
In May, Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio, announced it will cancel student debt for 2020 and 2021 graduates. The president of the historically Black university said at the time that the total amount of cleared debt would be more than $375,000.
“I think we need to calmly step back and maybe look at Trump in a different context,” Bernstein told CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter, adding that Trump is “our own American war criminal.”
Bernstein’s comments come as Trump’s election lies resurfaced in the news following a speech the former president delivered in Arizona Saturday.
In labeling Trump a war criminal, Bernstein specifically pointed to his administration’s response to the Covid-19 health crisis and the January 6 Capitol riot. The journalist said it’s important to look at the “tens of thousands of people who died because of his homicidal negligence in the pandemic” and his “fomenting a coup to hold on to office.” Trump put his own electoral interest above the health of Americans “as they were slaughtered in this pandemic,” Bernstein added.
Bernstein has been a very vocal critic of Trump. In February, following the Capitol riot, he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that he considered the ex-president to be the “first seditious president in our history.”
The lack of a topsy turvy first few months has translated to Biden’s approval rating. It’s been the most stable for any president since the end of World War II.
This, indeed, has been the story of the Biden presidency from a popularity standpoint. At every point at which I’ve checked in to see how Biden is doing from a historical perspective, nothing seems to shake his approval ratings.
Right now, Biden’s average approval rating right now rests at around 53%, no matter how you calculate said average. Over the course of Biden’s first six months in office, his approval rating has never risen above 55% or fallen below 51% in an average of polls. It was 53% in April and 54% in May.
To give you an idea of what a narrow lane Biden’s approval rating is in, you only need to look at history.
Prior to Biden, the average range for post-World War II presidents in their first six months in office was 14 points. Biden’s range is less than a third of that.
Nearly every other president saw his maximum and minimum approval rating differ by about greater than 7 points or more. (Lyndon Johnson’s gap was about 5.5 points.)
Former President Donald Trump’s range was 10 points, and he was thought to have an approval rating that was historically stable.
Biden, though, hasn’t really picked up any new supporters since the election. His approval rating matches his vote share (51%) and favorable rating in the exit polls (52%) nearly perfectly.
On the other hand, it’s been noticeable how Biden’s relative ranking on approval rating has risen the more time has gone on. Biden’s initial approval rating was near the bottom (only beating Trump) back in January.
Today, it beats Trump, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton’s. Barack Obama and George W. Bush’s approval ratings are within the margin of error of Biden’s approval rating.
With increased polarization, Biden’s approval rating probably has a better chance of not significantly moving during his presidency than it may have in an earlier era.
On the polarization front, Biden has to be pleased that Democrats still seem to stand firmly behind him. It’s hard to find any reputable poll where his approval rating among Democrats is below 90%. In the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, for instance, it’s 94%.
No other president in the post-World War II era had an approval rating at this point within his own party as Biden has now.
That’s not to say it’s all groovy for Biden.
The percentage of people firmly behind Biden seems to have shifted down a little bit. In the AP-NORC poll, for example, 25% and 26% of the public strongly approved of him in their last polls. In every poll of theirs before the most recent, more than 30% of the public strongly approved of Biden.
Likewise, in an average of live interview polls, the percentage of the public who strongly approved of Biden went from 31% in both January and February to 27% now.
A big question going forward is whether this signals that Biden’s base may not be as strong as it appears at first glance.
Another bad piece of news for Biden is that the opposition to him seems to have hardened. Biden’s disapproval rating is now in the low to mid-40s than the mid-30s it was back in January. This reflects more people going from undecided to disapproving of Biden.
If Biden was hoping that his efforts in the first six months of his presidency would bring over new supporters, he is mistaken — at least for the moment.
Of course, Biden would probably accept not gaining any supporters, as long as he doesn’t lose any. His approval rating is still above water, and that’s certainly better than his predecessor.
Last Thursday, wildlife care specialists noticed the snow leopard had a cough and nasal discharge, the zoo said in new release. Preliminary tests confirmed the virus that causes Covid-19.
The zoo said it doesn’t know how the snow leopard got infected. According to the Snow Leopard Trust, there may be only about 4,000 to 6,000 snow leopards left in the world.
In January, the zoo started vaccinating its animals with donated recombinant purified spike protein vaccines, which are not intended for human use. The zoo vaccinated several great apes after the zoo’s gorillas tested positive for the virus. The gorillas fully recovered.
Veterinary teams at the zoo are focusing on wildlife most at risk of contracting the virus, including leopards, lions, tigers, cheetahs, jaguars, mountain lions and others, according to the zoo’s news release.
The snow leopard appears to be doing well and is showing no addition symptoms, the zoo said.
The snow leopard shares his habitat with a female snow leopard and two Amur leopards. Those animals are being quarantined and monitored closely.
This isn’t the first time a snow leopard tested positive in the US. In December, three snow leopards at the Louisville Zoo were confirmed to be infected with the virus. Those leopards showed mild symptoms and were believed to have been infected by an asymptomatic staff member.
Testing at the zoo and at the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System confirmed the positive test of the San Diego Zoo’s snow leopard. Results are still pending from the US Department of Agriculture National Veterinary Services Laboratories.